Classic Poem

When my boat puts out from the shore,
When the last word of love and of hate has been said,
When my account with yesterday is all closed,
When nothing can be taken off the total of its good and evil,
Then I can sight my vision unhindered upon the wide open western world,
Then I can for the first time know what I have journeyed for in the doubtful years,
Then I can total the mortal causes in an immortal result
I do not know which I love most — the shore I have left or the shore I am going to:
I guess I love both just the same — that if I was ordered to choose I could not choose.
I do not know which is the best part of me — the part I left behind or the part I have taken along:
I guess there is no best part of me — that any one part of me is just as important as any other part of me.
The look back is so sweet, the look ahead is so sweet,
I hear so many I love calling upon me to return, I hear so many I love calling upon me to push on.
My boat goes on and on, away, away, away, towards, towards, towards:
I walk from bow to stern and back again and regard with equal honor the contending shorelines —
What can I say to my heart which reaches out both ways with such contrary desire?
I do not seem to belong to my receding self or to my dawning self but to something else within me:
I cannot tell what it is but it steadies the keel of the ship and makes the voyage certain.
I sail, I sail, I sail, across the unfathomed waters,
I pass ships everywhere, ships of beauty and hideous ships, and I hail them all —
Ships of love and hate I hail, ships of piracy and philanthropy I hail,
Hail all the ships with abounding and unhesitating love:
They all belong to the same shores and the same seas and bear towards the same port:
I hail the ships that hail me in return, I hail the ships that are silent.
Many are the departures of the soul, many are the arrivals of the soul,
Many are there who suffer agonies seeing loved adventurers set out,
Many are there who throw curses into the wake of the ship,
Many are there who do not understand — who shake their heads and are contented with their usual tasks,
Many are there who expect the ship to go down in the alien sea:
But you, oh my soul, you know the truth and firmly assert the truth:
You know that the ship could not go down and that there is no alien sea.
Up and down, up and down, the deck of my boat I walk,
Up and down, up and down, casting hungry looks back to the ancestral haunts,
Up and down, up and down, casting hungry looks forward across my new horizon
My passage is paid for by love — by the oldest love and the youngest love.
Oh loved shores — I say to you: Good bye!
Oh loved shores — I say to you: I am here!
I do not feel as if you had wronged me, you, shore that I leave: I feel as if my work with you was done — that is all.
I do not feel as if you are to do better than the other shore, you, shore that I voyage to: I feel as if I had work to do with you — that is all.
So I do not feel as if I could take sides and say yes or no to either,
I do not feel as if I could speak of good or bad or sun or shadow,
I do not feel as if I could love either or hate either try as I may to weigh them against each other,
I do not feel as if I could abandon my old love for any new love:
I look back upon the retreating shores of my self with oh such hungry eyes to return,
I look forward upon the advancing shores of myself with oh such hungry eyes to bear fearlessly on:
I walk, I walk, I look — I cry my hungry farewells, I cry my hungry greetings:
Oh God! which do I prefer? or do I prefer you, God, whose shadow is the substance of all?
My heart is the heart of the past and will always be so,
My heart is the heart of the future and will always be so,
When my boat puts out from the shore.